Gloria v. CA

RICARDO GLORIA v. COURT OF APPEALS
G.R. No. 119903, August 15, 2000

FACTS:

• Petitioner was appointed Schools Division Superintendent, Division of City Schools, Quezon City, by the then President Corazon C. Aquino.
• Respondent Secretary Gloria recommended to the President of the Philippines that the petitioner be reassigned as Superintendent of the Marikina Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), to fill up the vacuum created by the retirement of its Superintendent, Mr. Bannaoag Lauro
• The President approved the recommendation of Secretary Gloria.
• Director Rosas, informed the petitioner of his reassignment, effective October 17, 1994.
• Petitioner prepared a letter to the President of the Philippines, asking for a reconsideration of his reassignment, and furnished a copy of the same to the DECS. However, he subsequently changed his mind and refrained from filing the letter with the Office of President.
• October 19, 1994, the petitioner filed the instant petition.
• CA denied private respondent’s prayer for the issuance of a TRO.
• CA set aside its earlier resolution denying the prayer for the issuance of a TRO; and thereafter, restrained the petitioners "from implementing the re-assignment of the petitioner from incumbent Schools Division Superintendent of Quezon City to Vocational Schools Superintendent of the MIST."
• CA issued another resolution setting the hearing of the petition for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction and enjoining the petitioners from implementing the reassignment of the private respondent.
• CA issued its assailed decision; holding Memorandum of Secretary Ricardo T. Gloria to the President of the Philippines dated 10 October 1994, is hereby declared to be violative of petitioner’s right to security of tenure, and the respondents are hereby prohibited from implementing the same. 
• Petitioners theorize that the present petition for prohibition is improper because the same attacks an act of the President, in violation of the doctrine of presidential immunity from suit.

ISSUE:

• Whether or not the CA has allowed itself to be instrumental in private respondent’s circumvention of the presidential immunity from suit by giving due course and granting reliefs prayed for in a suit purportedly filed against petitioners but actually questioning an act of the president.

HELD:

• No, CA did not allow itself to be instrumental in private respondent’s circumvention of the presidential immunity from suit.
• Petitioners’ contention is untenable for the simple reason that the petition is directed against petitioners and not against the President. The questioned acts are those of petitioners and not of the President. Furthermore, presidential decisions may be questioned before the courts where there is grave abuse of discretion or that the President acted without or in excess of jurisdiction.
• Petitioners’ submission that the petition of private respondent with the CA is improper for failing to show that petitioners constituted themselves into a "court" conducting a "proceeding" and for failing to show that any of the petitioners acted beyond their jurisdiction in the exercise of their judicial or ministerial function, is barren of merit. Private respondent has clearly averred that the petitioners acted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction and/or excess of jurisdiction in reassigning the private respondent in a way that infringed upon his security of tenure. And petitioners themselves admitted that their questioned act constituted a ministerial duty, such that they could be subject to charges of insubordination if they did not comply with the presidential order. What is more, where an administrative department acts with grave abuse of discretion, which is equivalent to a capricious and whimsical exercise of judgment, or where the power is exercised in an arbitrary or despotic manner, there is a justification for the courts to set aside the administrative determination thus reached.